Khan v. Peel Condominium Corporation No. 492, 2015 HRTO 1458

HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO

B E T W E E N:

Asad Khan

Applicant

-and-

Peel Condominium Corporation No. 492

Respondent

INTERIM DECISION

Adjudicator: Dawn J. Kershaw Date: October 30, 2015 Citation: 2015 HRTO 1458 Indexed as: Khan v. Peel Condominium Corporation No. 492

WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS

Asad Khan, Applicant

Jean-Alexandre De Bousquet, Counsel

Introduction

1This Interim Decision addresses the applicant’s request to be permitted to amend his Application to:

a. add PC Home Canada as a named applicant;

b. include additional remedies of $15,000 for “General Damages” and $15,000 for “humiliation and loss of self-esteem”; and

c. add the ground of reprisal.

2The respondents filed no Form 11 Response to a Request for an Order During Proceedings.

3A summary hearing was held on July 8, 2015. The Tribunal’s July 8, 2015 Interim Decision (2015 HRTO 906) (“Interim Decision”) dismissed the applicant’s reprisal claim and permitted the applicant to amend his Application to add details of a November 26, 2014 allegation. While the Interim Decision directed the applicant to provide to the respondent and to the Tribunal details of the November 26, 2014 allegations within 10 days of the July 8, 2015 Interim Decision, the applicant consulted a lawyer who instead filed this request within the 10 day time limit.

Add Applicant

4The applicant explains that at all times he was acting on behalf of his company, PC Home Canada, and seeks to amend the Application to include his company as an applicant. The respondent provided no response.

5Rule 1.7(b) of the Tribunal’s Rules provides that the Tribunal may add or remove a party.

6The applicant’s request raises an issue of whether a company has standing as an applicant before this Tribunal, an issue the applicant did not address in its submissions.

7The question of whether a company can be an applicant is one that, to my knowledge, has not been addressed. The request bears some similarities to cases in which an estate seeks to be an applicant (see for example Adamson Estate v. Toronto Police Services Board, 2013 HRTO 1983). In the Supreme Court of Canada case of Canada (Attorney General) v. Hislop, 2007 SCC 10 (“Hislop”), dealing with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the court commented with respect to whether an estate could launch a Charter claim:

In the context in which the claim is made here, an estate is just a collection of assets and liabilities of a person who has died. It is not an individual and has no dignity that may be infringed.

8Similarly, in the context of the Human Rights Code, R.S.O 1990, c. H.19 (“Code”), it is arguable that a company is not a “person” who has dignity that can be infringed, despite the fact that the definition of “person” in the Code has as part of its meaning the extended definition given to it by Part VI of the Legislation Act that states that ‘“person” includes a corporation.

9In this case, without any convincing arguments regarding why the company should be an applicant, or whether it can be one in light of the Hislop decision, I am not convinced that it should be added as a party. Given the nature of the amendment requested, the request is denied. This order is made without prejudice to the applicant’s ability to seek to amend the application to add remedies arising from his company’s business losses given his capacity as the company’s principal.

Request to Amend Application to add Reprisal

10The applicant seeks to amend his Application to include the ground of reprisal in relation to the November 26, 2014 allegation. The respondent did not respond to the request.

11While a different allegation of reprisal was dismissed at the summary hearing, the applicant asks that he be permitted to add the ground in relation to the November 26, 2014 allegation that was not originally included in the Application and was not before the Tribunal when the summary hearing took place.

12The amendment is allowed in accordance with the test in Wozenilek v. 7-Eleven, 2009 HRTO 926 (“Wozenilek”), by “taking into account the stage at which the request to amend is made, the nature of the amendment and the absence of any apparent prejudice.” There is sufficient time to allow the respondent to respond to the new allegation, and the respondent filed no objection to the amendment so there is no prejudice to them.

Request to Amend the Application to Add Remedies

13In determining requests to amend applications, the Tribunal generally considers the nature of the proposed amendments, the reasons for the amendments, the timing of the request to amend, and the prejudice to the respondent. See, for example, Odell v. TTC, [2001] OHRBID No. 2, Dube v. Canadian Career College, 2008 HRTO 336; Wozenilek.

14Having considered the factors set out above and in the absence of submissions from the respondent, I grant the applicant’s request to amend the remedy sought in his Application. The Tribunal has regularly granted requests to amend remedies up to the date of the hearing. See, for example, Marino v. Compuware Corporation of Canada, 2011 HRTO 1390 and Loney v. Combusco Enterprises, 2011 HRTO 1050.

15These remedial amendments are made without any determination by the Tribunal as to the appropriateness of the remedies sought, and without prejudice to any position the respondent may wish to take regarding this issue.

order

16The Tribunal orders:

a. the applicant’s request to amend his Application to add PC Home Canada as an applicant is denied.

b. the applicant’s request to include the ground of reprisal in relation to the November 26, 2014 allegations is granted.

c. the applicant’s request to add remedies is granted.

d. the applicants shall deliver to the respondent their amended Application and file it and a Form 23 Statement of Delivery with the Tribunal by no later than November 6, 2015.

e. The respondent shall deliver to the applicants an amended Form 2 Response and file it and a Form 23 Statement of Delivery with the Tribunal by no later than November 20, 2015.

f. The applicants shall deliver to the respondent any amended Form 3 Reply and file it and a Form 23 Statement of Delivery with the Tribunal by no later than December 4, 2015.

g. The Application will be scheduled for a one day hearing.

17I am not seized.